


Unmei Tanzō, Fukkatsu Yamato

by asthiathien



Category: Space Battleship Yamato | Star Blazers
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Mythopoeia, Promises, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 11:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2227866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asthiathien/pseuds/asthiathien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"The Yamato was bright and broken, forged starlight in the name of a dying world."</em><br/>The <em>Yamato</em> had been forged for the vengeance of a screaming planet, and the Star Force had volunteered to be remade for the purpose of guiding her home.<br/>They are weapons. But some weapons cannot be controlled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmei Tanzō, Fukkatsu Yamato

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fateforged, Remade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/610001) by [icarus_chained](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained). 



The _Yamato_ was bright and broken, forged starlight in the name of a dying world. As a world fell and burned, a message came from the blazing void, whispers from a planet of far-distant light promising a chance at vengeance and showing the way to a weapon greater than all the universe.

 _Fateforged_ , the shining Queen had whispered, _unmei tanzō, the shining of a shattered dawn. A chance, and the light of bloodstained stars to guide you home._

They had understood, those battered, bleeding warriors who had received her message, and they had reforged an old battleship created for the conquest of a world into a war-queen forged in the promise of faraway Iscandar, vengeance and the singing of a dying people.

And those they had called to battle had been told, shown that anyone who could hope to tame this wild, fierce weapon they had forged would have to be a weapon too, something sharp and lethal and deadly. The _Yamato_ would demand sacrifice from them, the forsaking of a different life. Her crew had seen what they would endure, and none of them had turned aside. They had gone willingly into the shadow and the aegis of a bloodied queen forged only for death, and not one of them had hesitated. 

They had been reforged, like she, into the promise of worlds breaking at their feet, galaxies tearing apart beneath their hands, and they had become Fateforged, one and the same for all that they were mortal and she untouchable.

And that promise had never been forsaken; they had blazed a path through the shining void, and the stars had faltered and fallen in their wake, starlight and shadow and broken agony surging from the shattered souls of the Unmei Tanzō. 

And, at the end, they had met the one who had reshaped them, for all that she was light-years distant during the forging. She had seen what she had wrought, that Queen of light and benevolence meeting her counterpart of death and fire, and she had fulfilled her promise, given them the soul of healing for the tattered Fateforged to return with, so that fire might have the chance to save rather than merely destroy.

And as they had left that place of light, it had been understood that she was the maker, but not the wielder. Never the wielder. These first Fateforged who had been created willingly, who had thrown away the lives they could have led for a promise and the sundering of the universe, they would be free to soar where they wished, a weapon autonomous and untamed. 

At the end, the Warrior who had dared stand before the death chanted in the _Yamato's_ shadow, fell to the promise etched in her rebirth, shadow and light and fierce desperation snuffed out by the uncaring might of a majestic war-queen. 

But that was not the end, never the end, as a warlord of steel and might and destruction moved on their pale, bright world, and the _Yamato_ was forced to reforge herself in a new promise, the twilight of the god-kings incarnate and their desperate, bright fire burning in her heart.

Now, though, the _Yamato_ and her shining, broken warriors were not the only reforged, for just as she had been remade in blood and shadow and the fires of Armageddon rising upon the horizon, so too had their antithesis been recreated, but he in the harsh burning of white comet-light and the raging winds whipping about crystalline peaks. Forged to be her enemy, torn from Death's embrace to match the _Yamato's_ fury.

And yet, the _Yamato_ mourned for him as she trailed flame through the cosmos, for despite that she had been forged in a desperate promise, and irrevocably shattered in the remaking, her promise had been true and bright, starlight glimmering in the all-encompassing darkness in defiance of the burning sunset. He had been remade for an empty promise, made only to be a weapon for the conquerors to wield as they pleased, and never seeing how they had torn and unmade the soul of their weapon, the soul that had once been a mortal.

And when they meet again, the _Yamato_ weeps for him even through her own pain, for she can see the twisted madness in him, caused by the tearing of a promise that was not forsaken but never made at all, and the breaking of something that was meant to be sacred. She can see his attempts to reforge himself around the damage branded into his being by those who tried and failed to wield him, and she can see that he is slowly breaking himself beneath the chains and his shattered wings that never received the chance to fly.

And she knows, too, that the only way to remake is to shatter all that yet remains

She sees him through the eyes of her avatar, the young, fiery Captain who both confronted a desperate, bleeding enemy and offered a hand in reconciliation to him. And she sings to him, subaudible beneath the death throes of a dying ship, and she sees that he hears even as her song tears him apart. 

They hold him through the shattering and the unmaking, through the agony they well remember, and she holds her captain back from attempting to assist in the reforging, for, salvation or destruction, their enemy must remake himself or only condemn himself to another cycle of shattering and remaking. But finally, he pulls himself back, resharpens his dagger's edge, bright and lethal and bloodstained in the brilliant starlight. 

And together, they bring the warlord's empire collapsing down about him, the lashing winds and unnatural white illusions exploding out to vanish into the void between the stars.

It is not until later that she learns the promise he forged himself in, the protection and vengeance of a dying world and the Queen who forged her. And when all the strength of the Fateforged proves too little to save her, the Queen's shining spirit dissipating into the vast cosmos, she sees him break again, just as she did with the appearance of the comet upon the horizon.

And, in the silence at battle's end, he comes into her aegis, faltering and shadowed against the strength of what had been. 

_How do you reforge, when the promise you chose to uphold is lost?_ he asks her, in the subaudible hum of the Fateforged's words, clear and singing in the void.

 _Fukkatsu_ , she says simply, and she sees his smile as he looks up into the starlight.

 _Yes_ , he murmurs to her, light and brilliance and the dawn of Armageddon. _Fukkatsu._


End file.
